Date | Aug 12, 2016:
On the back of higher production of iron ore and chromite, India’s overall mineral production during the first quarter of the current financial year has gone up 14% to 138.53 million tonnes (MT) compared with 121.11 MT during the corresponding April-June period last year, according to yet-to-be-released provisional mining data reviewed by InfraCircle.
However, the growth in terms of value was down by 4% at Rs.9,758.96 crore compared with Rs.10,180.7027 crore in the year-ago period.
The rise in mineral production comes at a time when the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, credited with setting up a template for natural resource allocation in India, aims to speed up auction processes across the states to increase mineral production.
Despite the rout in commodity prices globally, India’s mineral production for financial year (FY) 2015-16 grew by 9% to 495 MT. On the other hand, the growth in terms of value decelerated by 11% to Rs.39,767.3 crore during that period.
According to provisional data compiled by India’s ministry of mines, while India’s metallic mineral production, including iron ore, bauxite, copper and zinc, rose by 30% to 56.88 MT during the first quarter of FY2017 compared with 43.73 MT during the same period of FY2016, growth in terms of value was down by 6% to Rs.7,944.06 crore during the period.
Metallic minerals such as iron, bauxite and manganese are those which can be melted to obtain new products such as steel and aluminium, while non-metallic minerals such as coal and limestone generate high levels of energy.
A significant spurt has also been seen in the production of iron ore during this period. Its production zoomed 43% to 48.236 MT compared with 33.712 MT during the first quarter of the last financial year. However, due to depressed commodity prices, its value was only marginally up to Rs.5,771.648 crore. Similarly, production of chromite ore was up by 31% to 0.8096 MT from 0.6199 MT in the year-ago period.
India, which accounts for about 4% of the global iron ore production, has recently seen a boost with the government taking a slew of measures, including waiver of export duties and pruning of railway freight charges.
Experts say that the surge in iron ore production is due to firming up of prices.
“During the past few quarters, prices of iron ore have firmed up seeing a rise in production. And it is greatly required to cater to the steel value chain,” said Kalpana Jain, partner at consultancy firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India LLP.
According to the data, production of bauxite has taken a hit during this quarter. Bauxite production was down by 16% to 7.013 MT compared with 8.384 MT during the first quarter of FY2016 while in value terms, growth was down by 13% at Rs.370.499 crore.
Also, production of lead and zinc registered a negative growth of 18% and 50% to 0.051 MT and 0.191 MT, respectively.
During the period, production of non-metallic minerals, including garnet, limestone, phosphorite and sillimanite was up 5.52% to 81.65 MT compared with 77.38 MT during the same period last year. However, its value was up 7.19% to Rs.1,814.90 crore compared with Rs.1,693.22 crore during the first quarter of FY2016.
(Source: http://www.vccircle.com/)